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Story last updated at 11:54 p.m. on Sunday, March 26, 2000
Billy Donovan, the University of Florida's hot young basketball coach, and Mike Miller, the Gators' sophomore forward. Donovan promised it would all come to this not so long ago, when the Gators would be cutting down nets and celebrating a trip to the Final Four.
He leaned over to Miller, the hero of UF's 77-65 victory over Oklahoma State in yesterday's East Regional final, and whispered words of surreal satisfaction.
"And people were wondering why?"
Why would Miller, one of the nation's top schoolboys in tiny Mitchell, S.D., want to play basketball thousands of miles from home at a football school?
Why would Donovan, one of the nation's hot coaching prospects, want to coach at Florida when his mentor, Rick Pitino, told him it was a mistake?
They climbed the ladders under the baskets yesterday, cutting each precious piece of twine and answering every last question.
"There are so many people that are a part of all this," Donovan said. "This is for so many people."
It was for point guard Teddy Dupay, who as a high school sophomore bought into Donovan's plans for a basketball program that was suddenly stale two years after a Final Four run in 1994. Dupay, Donovan says, started it all, committing three years before he would graduate from high school and starting a snowball of major recruits that soon followed and became the core of the team.
UF's fearless emotional leader, he hit two free throws in a crucial stretch of the second half when the Gators' double digit-lead disappeared.
"[Donovan] told me I'm going to start my program with a point guard, and you're the best in the state," Dupay said. "There was no one there, the table wasn't set. It was a big gamble."
It was for Ray Pelletier, a motivational speaker UF assistant coach Anthony Grant first met during his days as an assistant coach at Miami Senior High School. It was Pelletier who spoke with UF's coaches from a hospital bed in Miami with advice on motivation.
Every UF player ran out on the court yesterday with a message scribbled on the tape on his ankles.
"We told them to write the name of someone you love as a promise to them that you'll play your heart out," Donovan said.
Some messages read "Mom and Dad", others simply read "family." Udonis Haslem, UF's sophomore center and a key to the victory with 10 points and four rebounds, had "Sam Wooten," his stepbrother who died of cancer last summer.
"I know he was up there watching me," Haslem said. "He was the first person who put a basketball in my hand."
It was for UF assistant coach John Pelphrey, who was part of the greatest college basketball game ever played as a All-American at Kentucky. Pelphrey was on the floor when Duke's Christian Laettner hit a miracle shot to give the Blue Devils a dramatic and historic East Regional championship in 1992.
He never made it to the Final Four, even though he is one of 29 players to have his jersey retired at Kentucky.
"A lot of people from that game have cried long and hard and never gotten to experience the Final Four," Pelphrey said. "These kids are so special. This thing was all a pipe dream or an illusion, and they believed in it."
It was for freshmen Brett Nelson and Donnell Harvey, the latest McDonald's All-Americans to join the ride -- and a major factor in UF's postseason run. They were the final pieces, the point guard with the dazzling game and the center with the tenacity and desire to rebound and do the little things.
Nelson, voted to the East Region all-tournament team, hit clutch shots all through the Gators' wins over Butler, Illinois, Duke and Oklahoma State. Harvey had 10 points and six rebounds, including two thunderous dunks that put an end to any potential OSU rally late in the game.
"Everybody doubted us when we said we were going to the University of Florida," Nelson said. "But this proves that Coach Donovan was right. He said he was going to make this one of the top programs in the nation, and we trusted him."
It was for Kenyan Weaks, UF's lone senior and the emotional sparkplug, whose tears and inspiration transformed a collection of stars into a team of destiny after a narrow escape from Butler in the first round.
As the clock wound down yesterday, Weaks took the ball and finished one of the greatest wins in school history with a dunk of exclamation.
"I'm just in awe right now," Weaks said. "I don't know what to say. I'm so grateful."
It was for Jeremy Foley, Florida's athletic director, who was privately hurt and disappointed when former coach Lon Kruger left UF for Illinois in 1996, two years after guiding the Gators to the Final Four.
It took four hours at Donovan's home in Huntington, W.Va., for Foley to know he had his coach -- even though Donovan had been a head coach at Marshall for only two years.
"There was something about him," Foley said. "He was the right guy."
And it was for Donovan, the tireless recruiter, whose coaching in the tournament has matched his ability to get high school stars to believe in the dream he was selling.
UF was tired and running down with eight minutes to play in the game, and held a slim 56-53 lead. So Donovan pulled off the press and played OSU's halfcourt game. He did so, he said, because more than anything, he believed his players would do what it took.
Just as they believed in him when he sold them on winning championships at Florida. Moments after CBS signed off and the postgame interviews were complete, the players surrounded Donovan and rubbed his trademark slicked-back hair.
"I promised them if we won, they could mess up my hair," Donovan said.
Minutes later, he was climbing up the ladder with his son, Billy, while his father, Bill, and his grandfather, William, watched from the Carrier Dome floor. He looked back at his wife, Christine, smiled, and cut the last piece of twine.
"To me, as you get older, you understand what life is all about," Donovan said. "If you have no one to share it with, you don't have anything."
  
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